{"product_id":"9781805331612","title":"On Tangled Paths","description":"\u003cb\u003ePERFECT FOR FANS OF JANE AUSTEN: A seamstress and cavalry officer fall in love across class divides in this “sparkling, tender, delicately ironic” portrait of 19th-century Berlin (\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A joy for its humanity, subtlety and visual immediacy.”—\u003ci\u003e Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom Germany’s greatest 19th-century novelist, this realist masterpiece interrogates the strict social codes of a rapidly changing era through a wistful struggle between love and obligation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLene is an orphaned seamstress; Botho is a nobleman and an officer in one of the Prussian army's most glittering regiments. But despite their differences of class and education, they fall quickly in love, spending a summer together in a clear-eyed, tender love affair before society’s demands force them cruelly apart. Now married to a wealthy cousin, Botho learns years later that Lene too has an opportunity to marry. Her ex-lover must choose between holding on to regret or letting go of the past - along with the possibility of getting Lene herself back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnusually progressive for literature of the period, this masterwork of Fontane’s portrays a love story that defies class boundaries, full of tender irony and vivid evocations of a quickly expanding Berlin and its bucolic surroundings. Fontane bring sharp psychological insight to his achingly sympathetic portrayal of two lovers torn between their hearts and the obligations of social circumstance.","brand":"Theodor Fontane","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":48035685826772,"sku":"9781805331612","price":23.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/9208\/files\/BNCImageAPI_5ea202b6-efa9-4280-9458-9eb60676c0f2.jpg?v=1780368796","url":"https:\/\/penguinshop.ca\/products\/9781805331612","provider":"Penguin Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}